Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[kandrathe]

No it wasn't.  The anti American power in the Persian Gulf was Iran.  The US had, during the Cold War, made common cause with any number of unsavory governments in the general war against the Soviet Imperium, so it would not be illogical to get in bed (politics make strange bedfellows) with Saddam if he was giving Iran the red ass. 

What was idiotic was giving him the green light in 1990, or not giving him the red light in 1990.  There are many articles written about how ambivelent and vague the warning were that the US Ambassador to Iraq gave to Saddam in July of 2000 when our intel showed him positioning his forces, yet again, to saber rattle vis a vis Kuwait, yet again.

What is remarkable to me was Saddam's complete inability to read and guage two men: George Bush and his son.  He completely outfoxed himself in dealing with them both.

Occhi
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We didn't do much to help Iraq in a conventional way. Satellite intelligence is one thing, but the ambivelance to the development and use chemical and biological weapons was idiotic. I see the Iran/Iraq conflict as one we dabbled in enough to keep either side from winning. I understand the need to contain Iran's fundamentalist jihad, but I think there were better ways to skin that cat.